Comedy Central to launch Twitter comedy festival

April 22, 2013

Putting a new test to the adage that brevity is the soul of wit, Comedy Central is partnering with Twitter for a comedy festival played out in 140 characters and 6-second videos.

The Viacom Inc.-owned network said Sunday that the festival with the hashtag "ComedyFest" will debut April 29. Over five days, comedians will tweet jokes and post videos with the recently launched video app Vine, which limits footage to 6 seconds.

The launch of the festival, which Comedy Central is expected to officially announce Monday, was first reported by The New York Times.

Kicking off the social media festival will be an event Monday at the Paley Center in Los Angeles featuring Rob Reiner, Judd Apatow and Mel Brooks. So far, Brooks is a Twitter holdout.

(AP) -- Viacom, the owner of MTV, Comedy Central and other television channels, is suing cable TV distributor Cablevision over an iPad app that Viacom says streams video of its channels without permission.

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